Your Eschatology Matters
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YOUR ESCHATOLOGY MATTERS
If you have been following along with our more recent episodes, you will know that we have been in a mini-series in the book of Acts, looking at all the eschatological passages within. This is also part of a larger macro-series on the end-times that began in the book of Malachi, crossed the intertestamental gap and looked at the eschatology of John the Baptist, then plunged into the eschatology of Jesus, traversing critical texts in Matthew, as well as the tremendous eschatological prophecy found in the Olivet discourse. Today is our thirty-fourth episode dealing with eschatology.
With that, you may be wondering, out of 84 total episodes of the PRODCAST, why would we devote 34 episodes to eschatology? That question is easily answered. Because your eschatology will dictate the way you engage with culture. To say that differently, what you believe about the destination of human history will shape your thoughts about its direction. If you believe the world is basically barreling over a cliff's edge, going from bad to worse, ready to implode at a moment's notice, then you will either try and save as many people as you can before the collapse or you will huddle away in your bunker until the commander returns to rescue you. You will not be interested in fighting any losing battles. You will not put energy and effort into preserving anything or building anything because what moron would waste their time arranging the deck chairs on a sinking ship?
No, if that is the destination we are all heading in the eschaton, then you will aim all of your efforts toward making as many converts as you can before the imminent rapture, and you will leave the time-consuming things like making disciples and building the next Christendom to fall by the wayside. And that would be the right approach if the world were moments away from catastrophe.
But, what if, on the other hand, you believe that history is His story of great victory and that over the last two thousand years, He has been building His Church, His Kingdom has been growing, and it will continue to grow until His reign of peace covers the earth with His glory and covenant blessings? If you believe that, and there are good reasons for doing so, then you would not bury your head in the proverbial sand. You would not frantically seek to make a litany of shallow converts. Instead, you would build churches that preach the Gospel and plant new churches that make disciples. You would run like you are running the Iron Man instead of the 60-meter sprint. You, my friend, will get up and build!
This is especially important to me and central to the mission of this show because I began this as a way of invigorating Christians. The tagline that I say before every episode, "to prod the sheep and beat the wolf," is my admission that the Church in America has been in a state of gross lethargy, and we need to wake up, shake things up, and get on with building the Kingdom we have been commanded to build wherever God has called us to live. Yet, because many Churches and many within the Church have been in full-scale retreat mode, hiding from this culture for the last several generations instead of engaging it, three things have inevitably occurred:
A legion of savage wolves have multiplied like rabbits without fear of reprisal. This is because weak-kneed pastors, shallow churches, and uninvolved Christians have allowed the hounds of hell to proliferate unchecked in both the Church and throughout this world.
Because the Church has overwhelmingly abandoned culture, society around us has decayed like a year-old Ribeye, left out on the counter, and now stinks to high heaven.
Because the Church has focused so much of its energy on making converts instead of disciples, the vast majority of Christians today are spiritually immature and incapable of even lifting the sword of truth, much less wielding it in battle.
This is why a salty little show like this exists, and this is why we focus on a topic like eschatology: because we want to see the Church get prodded into faithful activity and to see the wolves and the enemies of God beaten into submission. But to do that, we need to be focused on the right kind of eschatology.
THE KIND OF ESCHATOLOGY MATTERS
There is no debate on whether Jesus wants us to be engaged with culture. When He told us to make disciples of all the nations (Matthew 28:19), He told us to be about transforming them. That work will continue until all the nations bow their knee to King Jesus and joyfully obey Him. Further, by calling us salt (Matthew 5:13-16), Jesus intends on His Church to be the agent of preservation in a culture that would decay and rot without us. In the same way that meat would be packed with salt before the dawn of refrigeration, the nations of this earth must be packed full of Christians who will act for the preservation and renewal of the world instead of hiding from it. "This is why Jesus called us to be lights that shine in crooked generations (Philippians 2:14-16), like a lampstand (Revelation 2:5), set upon a hilltop for all the world to see (Matthew 5:14).
Yet, as we have said before, certain eschatological schools of thought invigorate our cultural engagement and others (the wrong ones), which stifle it. While a full-scale treatment of this is impossible here, I want to break down the primary schools of eschatological thinking into two camps so that you will know where this show comes from and why we are so jolly. We need to talk about eschatology in two particular ways to do this. First, when does the millennium happen? And when will Jesus' return occur in relation to that millennium? And second, what hermeneutical framework should we use to interpret all of the eschatological passages in the Bible? Let us begin with the millennium.
THE MILLENNIAL CHALLENGE
If you are still getting familiar with these categories, the millennial Kingdom is the one-thousand-year reign that John speaks of in Revelation 20. It is Jesus' reign over the whole earth, where the entire planet comes under the banner of His Lordship when Satan is bound for a thousand years, and Jesus' Kingdom of peace reigns among the nations without opposition. Concerning this passage, there are 3 primary schools of thought.
PREMILLENNIALISM
The first is called premillennialism, which holds that Jesus will return in the future to this earth (rapturing His Church out of it and crushing Antichrist's 7-year reign of terror) before He sets up His literal and physical one thousand-year millennial Kingdom. According to the premillennialists, Jesus is not reigning at the right hand of God as Earth's current King but is instead sitting at the right hand of God, awaiting the time when He can return and set up His millennial Kingdom. This punts the reign of Christ into the uncertain future and allows premillennials to view the world pessimistically since they believe it is still under the authority and control of the devil. While it is essential to recognize that various streams and differences exist within the premillennial camp (i.e., dispensationalism, historical premillennialism, etc.), this represents a basic schema.
AMILLENNIALISM
The second primary millennial position is called amillennialism, which holds that Jesus is in His reign right now. Unlike premillennialism, He is not waiting for it to occur in the future; he is ruling currently in heaven. And, just as the prefix "pre" tells us something about what premillenials believe, the "a" prefix says something about what amillennialists think as well. Generally speaking, when "a" is applied to the front of a word, it is done so as negation. For instance, a theist believes in the possibility of a god, whereas an Atheist does not. The "a" in atheist negates the term theist. But, in this case, the "a" in amillennialism does not communicate the negation of Christ's reign, but only that the one thousand years discussed in Revelation are not a literal period of time. To the amillennialist, Jesus is currently sitting on His throne, reigning over a spiritual kingdom in heaven that is not confined to a literal thousand years.
Amillennialists correctly point out that the number one thousand is often used in figurative expressions and typically signifies fullness. For example, when the psalmist describes the extent of the Lord's livestock, he says that God owns the cattle on a thousand hills. This usage doesn't imply that God only owns cattle on a specific number of hills but conveys that God owns all the cattle on all the hills. Similarly, in Revelation's highly poetic and figurative language, the one thousand years symbolize the fullness of Christ's reign over all time. According to this perspective, Christ is presently reigning spiritually in heaven, a condition that will persist until His return.
POSTMILLENNIALISM
A third basic perspective on the eschaton is called postmillennialism, which shares much in common with the amillennial view. However, instead of seeing the reign of Christ as being limited to a spiritual kingdom in heaven, postmillennialists envision Jesus' reign as positively affecting the nature and trajectory of life on earth. According to the postmillennialist perspective, Christ received a never-ending Kingdom from God the Father when He ascended into heaven (Daniel 7:13-14). This Kingdom is described as a global government of peace (Isaiah 9:6-7), led by the true and better Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45), that fills the world with God's glory (Habakkuk 2:14), and takes over the entire earth (Daniel 2:44-45), like a mustard seed that fills the garden (Matthew 13:31-32) or like leaven that leavens the entire lump (Matthew 13:33), until Christ has put all His enemies under His feet (Psalm 110:1), and then the end comes (1 Corinthians 15:24-26).
According to the postmillennialist and holy Scripture, the world is not going from bad to worse. The world is under the rule and authority of Jesus Christ (Matthew 28:18), and He will continue to reign over it until God's Kingdom has come on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10).
As you may have guessed, it is the postmillennial view that we hold, and it is the postmillennial view that rightly sees Jesus winning over the nations, transforming them for His glory, and making this world increasingly conformed to His image. When you see the world that way, you will engage with it—not like a captain going down with a sinking ship but like men and women who believe Christ will have the victory, redeem this land, and use the Church to accomplish it. This view invigorates real evangelism instead of frantic conversion-making. It invigorates authentic discipleship and kingdom building with a view of long-term effort over multi-generations because we believe that the grand vision of the world submitting under the Lordship of Christ is still a ways away from being accomplished. This view also invigorates a godly and wholesome optimism, seeing how Christ has faithfully built His Church over the last 2000 years and trusting that this same Jesus will continue building it in the years ahead (before He returns to usher in the eternal state).
THE HERMENEUTICAL CHALLENGE
Along with the millennial question and the timing of Jesus' return, eschatological views differ widely based on our hermeneutical perspective (how we read and interpret the Biblical text). With this in mind, four basic hermeneutical approaches can be found in the realm of eschatology, which will dictate what you believe about the end times and how you will engage in culture in our present times.
FUTURISM
The first major hermeneutical position is called futurism. Futurism assumes a future fulfillment for the vast majority, if not all, of the eschatological texts in the Bible. This viewpoint is from the reader's perspective and not the authors of Scripture since every prophecy is in the future of the one who gives it. For the futurist, the prophecies of Scripture are not in the immediate future of the men who gave them but in the future as it relates to us. In this sense, futurism sees that the majority of eschatological passages in the Bible, at best, are multiple thousands of years into the future from the ones who wrote them. This is also precisely why most premillennialists and dispensationalists are futurists. To believe that Jesus will return in the future and set up His millennial reign in the future after a future rapture and future beast are put down requires a hermeneutic that views almost all of the eschatological passages distantly removed from the Biblical writers.
This view has led to eisegetical interpretations and a tremendous amount of speculation over the last two thousand years, with every generation producing futurists who sincerely believe we live in the last days. With the passages of Scripture being in the uncertain future and no one knowing the day or the hour, then no one can really know when the end times begin. This is why every 10-15 minutes, a new eschatology book or blog comes out claiming to have solved the end-times puzzle, proving we are about to be zapped out of here. As I have said before, with a history of so many failed predictions and flawed prophetic interpretations, why would we trust anything a futurist ever says? You would more likely win the Powerball a hundred times in a row than have a futurist be right about the end being in our own day.
HISTORICISM
The second major hermeneutical perspective is called historicism. Historicists traditionally view eschatological events as unfolding throughout time, with specific prophecies aligning with various eras and periods within church history. This approach often associates biblical prophecies with specific historical figures or events, offering a timeline of fulfillment that spans from biblical times to the present day. The classic text that Historicists argue from is Revelation 2-3, assuming that each of the seven churches of Revelation describes a unique and sequential period in world history, with the final Laodicean lukewarm age of man being the one in which Jesus returns. While popular several hundred years ago, this view is almost non-existent today.
IDEALISM
The third hermeneutical position is called idealism, which interprets the eschatological passages of Scripture as conveying timeless and symbolic truths rather than predicting specific past or future events. This approach emphasizes the overarching themes of spiritual conflict, victory, and the ultimate triumph of God's purposes in a more symbolic and allegorical manner. This position is common among amillennialists, who assume that the reign of God is heavenly and spiritual. Thus, the truths revealed in the eschatological scriptures are not so much referring to specific events but to spiritually consequential truths that will sustain us until Jesus returns physically and bodily.
PRETERISM
The fourth hermeneutical position is called preterism, which comes from the Latin word 'preter,' meaning past. In that sense, preterism considers most eschatological passages in the Bible as having already been fulfilled. There are some brands of preterism (called hyper-preterists or full-preterists) who believe that everything in the New Testament has been fulfilled. But these are rare and usually fall into other more severe heresies.
Yet, even while some wrongly interpret the Bible using preterism, the view helpfully focuses on what the original audience of the Scripture would have believed the original writer meant in their world and circumstances. In this sense, preterism, more than any other hermeneutical position, grounds the interpretation of the text into the world in which it was written. Unlike the futurists, who assume the majority of the end-times verses are still way off in our future, preterists assume that the end-times sayings and prophecies were in the future of the men who wrote them, but not in our future still today.
This has great practical importance for the way we read the Bible. If the events Jesus is describing in Matthew 24, or the events Luke is describing in Acts, are still hidden somewhere in the cloudy future, then they would have zero relevance to the original author who wrote then and the original audience that was commanded to get their hope and assurance from them. And if God makes it a habit of writing things that have no relevance to His people, how can we trust anything He says to His people? Yet, if the events described in eschatology relate to events in their future, their circumstances, and would happen in their lifetimes, then we can see how loving and caring God is to give aid to His struggling people in the past, which will invigorate our hope that He is still caring for us, and not overlooking us, today. Furthermore, when we remember that we are not the original audience of Scripture, and by that I mean that Paul did not address His letter to the twenty-first century American Church, we will stop looking for the Biblical prophecies to be fulfilled in our era and start looking for the fulfillment that occurred in theirs. Doing this will unlock the Bible's meaning in so many life-giving and exciting ways and will enliven us to see how the Bible rightly applies to our day.
As you can tell, this podcast does not subscribe to the foolish view of futurism. Sure, there are passages in the Bible that are still in our future, just as some passages relate to spiritual principles and how those truths apply today (Idealism). But, when adopting a hermeneutical framework for reading the Bible, the standard evangelical method is to try and understand what the original author was attempting to communicate to the original audience. When you do that, the only viable method of interpreting eschatological passages is the method known as partial preterism. Partial because we do not believe everything in the Bible has already been fulfilled, but when looking at the subject objectively, it is clear that the majority of its future-oriented texts have already been fulfilled.
CONCLUSION
While it is beyond the scope of this article to prove the Postmillennial and Partial Preterist view, it should clarify what view you will get here. If you want a blog that helps you discover who the Antichrist is, what the Mark of the Beast will be, and how the locusts in Revelation really mean Apache helicopters, this blog is not for you. If you want me to come on here and whine about how bad the world is and offer nothing helpful by way of fixing it, this blog is not for you. I believe with all my heart that Christ is reigning on His throne. I believe that many of the New Testament passages have already been fulfilled and that we are waiting on the future fulfillment when the entire world is under the reign of Christ and He returns to usher in the eternal state. I believe, in the meantime, we are meant to be builders instead of cowards. You will find no eschatological defeatism or passivism while we await our rapture out of here. No. Here, you will find Biblical truth, frankly delivered, to help prod us to righteous living, Kingdom building, and retaking culture for Christ. If that is what you are into, great, there are thirty-four episodes on this topic, with more to come.
Next week, we will finish our eschatological look at the Book of Acts. After that, we will dive into the eschatology of Paul, followed by the other New Testament writers, that culminate with John's eschatological magnum opus, the book of Revelation. We will likely take breaks along the way and work our way through the material carefully, exegetically, and faithfully. And we will encourage the saints of God to do what God has commanded, so long as we are all still standing, all for the glory of our King.
Until next week, God richly bless you!
